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OR. AT 1 ON 



GEN. GEORGE B. Mi'CLELLAN 



Ni:\V FORK : 

C. S. Wksto.tt A Co., Pribtxu 

18C4. 



61 503 



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OKATION 



GEN. GEORGE B. MCGLELLAN 



* .» ♦«■>-»- 



NEW YORK: 

C. 8. Wfstcott & Co., Printers. 
1864. 






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ORATION 



BY 



GENERAL GEOBGE B. McCLELLAN. 



All nations have days sacred to the remem- 
brance of joy and of grief. They have thanks- 
givings for success, fasting and prayers in the hour 
of humiliation and defeat, triumphs and paeans to 
greet the living laurel-crowned victor. They have 
obsequies and eulogies for the warrior slain on 
the field of battle. Such is the duty we are to 
perform to-day. The poetry, the histories, the ora- 
tions of antiquity, all resound with the clang of 
arms ; they dwell rather upon rough deeds of war, 
than the gentle arts of peace. They have pre- 
served to us the names of heroes, and the memory 
of their deeds, even to this distant day. Our own 
Old Testament teems with the narrations of the 
brave actions and heroic deaths of Jewish patriots, 
while the New Testament of our meek , and suf- 
fering Saviour, often selects the soldier and his 
weapons, to typify and illustrate religious heroism 



4 BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 

and duty. These stories of the actions of the dead, 
have frequently survived in the lapse of ages, the 
names of those whose fall was thus commemo- 
rated centuries ago. But, although we know not 
now the names of all the brave men who fought 
and fell upon the plain of Marathon, in the pass 
of Thermopylae, and on the hills of Palestine, we 
have not lost the memory of their examples. As 
long as the warm blood courses the veins of man, 
as long as the human heart beats high and quick 
at the recital of brave deeds and patriotic sacri- 
fices, so long will the lesson still incite generous 
men to emulate the heroism of the past. 

Among the Greeks, it was the custom that the 
fathers of the most valiant of the slain should pro- 
nounce the eulogies of the dead. Sometimes it de- 
volved upon their great statesmen and orators to 
perform this mournful duty. Would that a new 
Demosthenes, or a second Pericles could arise and 
take my place to-day, for he would find a theme 
worthy of his most brilliant powers, of his most 
touching eloquence I stand here now, not as an 
orator, but as the whilom commander, and in the 
place of the fathers of the most valiant dead. As 
their comrade, too, on many a hard-fought field 
against domestic and foreign foe — in early youth 
and mature manhood — moved by all the love that 
David felt when he poured forth his lamentations 



BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 5 

for the mighty father and son who fell on Mount 
Gilboa. God knows that David's love for Jonathan 
was no more deep than mine for the tried friends 
of many long- and eventful years, whose names are 
to be recorded upon the structure that is to rise 
upon this spot. Would that his more than mortal 
eloquence could grace my lips and do justice to 
the theme ! 

AYe have met to-day, my comrades, to do honor 
to our own dead ; brothers united to us by the 
closest and dearest ties, who have freely given 
their lives for their country in this war — so just 
and righteous, so long as its purpose is to crush 
rebellion, and to save our nation from the infinite 
evils of dismemberment. Such an occasion as this 
should call forth the deepest and noblest emotions 
of our nature — *pride, sorrow, and prayer ; pride 
that our country has possessed such sons ; sorrow 
that she has lost them ; prayer that she may have 
others like them ; that we and our successors may 
adorn her annals as they have done, and that 
when our parting hour arrives, whenever and how- 
ever it may be, our souls may be prepared for the 
great change. • 

We have assembled to consecrate a cenotaph, 
which shall remind our children's children, in the 
distant future, of their fathers' struggles in the 
days of the great rebellion. This monument is to 



b BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 

perpetuate the memory of a portion only of those who 
have fallen for the nation in this unhappy war — it 
is dedicated to the officers and soldiers of the regular 
army. Yet this is done in no class or exclusive 
spirit ; and in the act we remember with reverence 
and love, our comrades of the volunteers, who have 
so gloriously fought and fallen by our sides. Each 
state will, no doubt, commemorate in some fitting 
way the services of its sons, who abandoned the 
avocations of peace and shed their blood in the 
ranks of the volunteers. How richly they have 
earned a nation's love, a nation's gratitude, with 
what heroism they have confronted death, have 
wrested victory from a stubborn foe, and have il- 
lustrated defeat, it well becomes me to say, for it 
has been my lot to command them on many a 
sanguinary field. I know that I but echo the feel- 
ing of the regulars, when I award the high credit 
they deserve to their brave brethren of the volun- 
teers. 

But we of the regular army have no states to 
look to for the honors due our dead. AVe belong 
to the whole country, and can neither expect nor 
desire the general government to make a distinc- 
tion in our favor. We are few in number, a small 
band of comrades, united by peculiar and very 
binding ties; for with many of us our friendships 
were commenced in boyhood, when we rested here 



BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 7 

in the shadow of the granite hills which look 
down upon us where we stand; with others tic 
ties of brotherhood were formed in more mature 
years, while fighting among the rugged mountains 

and the fertile valleys of Mexico — within hearing 
of the eternal waves of the Pacific, or in tin- 
lonely grandeur of the great plains of the far West. 
With all, our love and confidence have been ce- 
mented by common dangers and sufferirfgs, on the 
toilsome march, in the dreary bivouac, and amid 
the clash of arms, and in the presence of death on 
scores of battle-fields. West Point, with her large 
heart, adopts. us all — graduates and those appointed 
from civil life, officers and privates. In her eyes 
we are all her children, jealous of her fame, and 
eager to sustain her world-wide reputation. Gen- 
erals and. private soldiers, men who have cheer- 
fully offered our all for our dear country, we stand 
here before this shrine, ever hereafter sacred to our 
dead, equals and brothers in the presence of the 
common death which awaits us all, perhaps on 
the same field and at the same hour. Such are 
the ties which unite us, the most endearing which 
exist among men; fuoh the relations which hind 
us together, the closest of the sacred brotherhood 
of arms. 

It has therefore seemed, and it is fitting, that 
we should erect upon this spot, so sacred to us all, 



8 BATTLE MONUMENT AT "WEST FOINT. 

an enduring monument to our dear brothers who 
have preceded us on the path of peril and of hon- 
or, which it is the destiny of many of us to tread. 

What is the regular army to which we belong ? 

Who were the men whose death merits such 
honors from the living ? 

What is the cause for which they have laid 
down their lives? 

Our regular or permanent army is the nucleus 
which, in time of peace, preserves the military 
traditions of the nation, as well as the organiza- 
tion, science, and instruction indispensable to mod- 
ern armies. It may be regarded as co-eval with the 
nation. It derives its origin from the old conti- 
nental and State lines of the Revolution, whence, 
with some interruptions and many changes, it has 
attained its present condition. In fact, we may 
with propriety go even beyond the Revolution to 
seek the roots of our genealogical tree in the old 
French wars, for the Cis-Atlantic campaigns of the 
seven years' war were not confined to the " red 
men scalping each other by the great lakes of 
North America," and it was in them that our an- 
cestors first participated as Americans in the large 
operations of civilized armies. American regiments 
then fought on the banks of the St. Lawrence and 
the Ohio, on the shores of Ontario and Lake 
George, on the islands of the Caribbean and in 



BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 'J 

South America. Louisburgh, Quebec, Duquesne, 
the Moro, and Porto I3el)f», attest ilie valor of the 
provincial troops, and in that school were educated 
such soldiers as Washington, Putnam, Lee, Mont- 
gomery, and Gates. These and men like Greene, 
Knox, Wayne, and Steuben, were the fathers of 
our permanent army, and under them our troops 
acquired that discipline and steadiness which ena- 
bled them to meet upon equal terms, and often to 
defeat, the tried veterans of England. The study 
of the history of the Revolution, and a perusal of 
the despatches of Washington, will convince the 
most skeptical of the value of the permanent army 
in achieving our independence and establishing the 
civil edifice which we are now fighting to pre- 
serve. 

The war of 1812 found the army on a footing 
far from adequate to the emergency, but it was 
rapidly increased, and of the new generation of sol- 
diers, many proved equal to the requirements of 
the occasion. Lundy's Lane, Chippewa, Queens- 
town, Plattsburgh, New Orleans — all bear witness 
to the gallantry of the regulars. 

Then came an interval of more than thirty years 
of external peace, marked by many changes in the 
organization and strength of the regular army, and 
broken at times by tedious and bloody Indian wars. 
Of these the most remarkable were the Black 



10 BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 

Hawk war, in which our troops met unflinchingly 
a foe as relentless, and ^r more destructive than 
the Indians — that terrible scourge, the cholera ; and 
the tedious Florida war, where for so many years, 
the Seminoles eluded in their pestilential swamps 
our utmost efforts, and in which were displayed 
such traits of heroism as that commemorated by 
yonder monument to Dade and his command, 
" when all fell save three, without an attempt to 
retreat." At last came the Mexican war, to replace 
Indian combats and the monotony of the frontier 
service, and for the first time in many years the 
mass of the regular army was concentrated, and 
took the principal part in the battles of that re- 
markable and romantic war. Palo Alto, Resaca, 
and Fort Brown were the achievements of the reg- 
ulars unaided ; and as to the battles of Monterey, 
Buena Vista, Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, and the final 
triumphs in the valley, none can truly say that 
they could have been won without the regulars. 
When peace crowned our victories in the capital 
of the Montezumas, the army was at once dis- 
persed over the long frontier, and engaged in har- 
assing and dangerous wars with the Indians of the 
plains. Thus thirteen long years were -pent, until 
the present war broke out, and the mass of the 
army was drawn in, to be employed againsl a do- 
mestic foe. 



BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 11 

I cannot proceed to the events of the recent 
past and the present -wit hunt adverting to the 
gallant men who were so long of our number, bul 
who have now gone to their last home, for no 
small portion of the glory of which we boasl was 
reflected from such men as Taylor, Worth, Brady, 
Brooks, Totten, and Duncan. 

There is a sad story of Venetian history that 
has moved many a heart, and often employed the 
poet's pen and the painter's pencil. It is of an 
old man whose long life was- gloriously spent in 
the service of the state as a warrior and a 
statesman, and who, when his hair was white 
and his feeble limbs could scarce carry his bent 
form toward the grave, attained the highest honors 
that a Venetian citizen could reach. He was 
Doge of Venice. Convicted of treason against the 
state, he not only lost his life, but suffered be- 
side a penalty which will endure as long as the 
name of Venice is remembered. The spot where 
his portrait should have hung in the great hall of 
the doge's palace was veiled with black, and 
there still remains the frame, with its black mass 
of canvas — and this vacant frame is the most con- 
spicuous in the long line of effigies of illustrious 
doges ! 

Oh! that such a pall as that which replaces the 
portrait of Marino Faliero could conceal from his- 



12 BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 

tory the names of those, once our comrades, who 
are now in arms against the flag under which we 
fought side by side in years gone by. But no 
veil can cover the anguish that fills our hearts 
when we look back upon the sad memory of the 
past, and recall the affection and respect we enter- 
tained toward men against whom it is now our 
duty to act in mortal combat. Would that the 
courage, ability, and steadfastness, they display, 
had been employed in the defence of the " Stars 
and Stripes," against a foreign foe, rather than in 
this gratuitous and unjustifiable rebellion, which 
could not have been so long maintained but for 
the skill and energy of these, our former comrades. 
But we have reason to rejoice that upon this 
day, so sacred and so eventful for us, one grand 
old mortal monument of the past still lifts high 
his head among us, and graces by his presence 
the consecration of this tomb of his children. We 
may well be proud that we have been commanded 
by the hero who purchased victory with his blood 
near the great waters of Niagara ; who repeated 
and eclipsed the achievements of Cortez ; who, 
although a consummate and confident commander, 
ever preferred, when duty and honor would per- 
mit, the olive branch of peace to the blood-stained 
laurels of war, and who stands, at the (•!<»«> of a 
lung, glorious, and eventful life, a living column of 



BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 13 

granite against which have beaten in vain alike 
the blandishments and the storms of treason. His 
name will ever be one of our proudest boasts and 
most moving inspirations. In long-distant ages, 
when this incipient monument has become vener- 
able, moss-clad, and perhaps ruinous, when the 
names inscribed upon it shall seem, to those who 
pause to read them, indistinct mementoes of an 
almost mythical past, the name of Wlnfield Scott 
will still be clear cut upon the memory of all, 
like the still fresh carving upon the monuments of 
long-forgotten Pharaohs. 

But it is time to approach the present. 

In the war which now shakes the land to its 
foundation the regular army has borne a most 
honorable part. Too few in numbers to act by 
themselves, regular regiments have participated in 
every great battle in the East, and in most of 
those west of the Alleghanies. Their terrible ios 
and diminished numbers prove that they have been 
in the thickest of the fight, and the testimony of 
their comrades and commanders shows with what 
undaunted heroism they have upheld their ancient 
renown. Their vigorous charges have often won 
the day, and in defeat they have often saved the 
army from destruction, or terrible losses, by the ob- 
stinacy with w r hich they resisted overpowering 
numbers. They can refer with pride to the part 



14 BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 

they played upon the glorious fields of Mexico, 
and exult at the recollection of what they did at 
Manassas, Gaines' Mill, Malvern, Antietam, Shiloh, 
Stone River, Gettysburg^, and the great battles 
just fought from the Rapidan to the Chickahom- 
iny. They can also point to the officers.- who 
have risen among them and achieved great deeds 
for their country in this war; — to the living war- 
riors whose names are on the nation's tongue and 
heart, too numerous to be repeated here, yet not 
one of whom I would willingly omit. 

But perhaps the proudest episode in the history 
of the regular army is that touching instance of 
fidelity on the part of the non-commissioned officers 
and privates, who, treacherously made prisoners in 
Texas, resisted every temptation to violate their 
oath and desert their flag. Offered commissions 
in the rebel service, money and land freely ten- 
dered them, they all scorned the inducements held 
out to them, submitted to every hardship, and 
when at last exchanged, avenged themselves on 
the field of battle for the unavailing insult offered 
their integrity. History affords no brighter exam- 
ple of honor than that of these brave men, tempted, 
as I blush to say they were, by some of their for- 
mer officers, who, having themselves proved false 
to their flag, endeavored to seduce the men who 
had often followed them in combat, and who had 
naturally regarded them with respect and love. 



BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 15 

Such is the regular army — such its history and 
antecedents — such its officers and men. It needs 
no herald io trumpet forth its praises : it can 
proudly appeal to the numerous fields, from the 
tropics to the frozen hanks of the St. Lawrence, 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, fertilized by the 
blood and whitened by the bones of its members 
But I will not pause to eulogize it. Let its deeds 
speak for it ; they are more eloquent than tongue 
of mine. 

Why are we here to-day '( 

This is not the funeral of one brave warrior, nor 
even of the harvest of death on a single battle- 
field : but these are the obsequies of the best and 
bravest of the children of the land, who have fall- 
en in actions almost numberless, many of them 
among the most sanguinary and desperate of 
which history bears record. The men, whose 
names and deeds we now seek to perpetuate, ren- 
dering them the highest honor in our power, have 
fallen wherever armed rebellion showed its front — 
in far-distant New Mexico, in the broad valley of 
the Mississippi, on the bloody hunting-grounds of 
Kentucky, in the mountains of Tennessee, amid the 
swamps of Carolina, on the fertile fields of Mary- 
land, and in the blood-stained thickets of Virginia. 
They were of all grades — from the general officer 
to the private; of all ages — from the grayhaired 



16 BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 

veteran of fifty years' service, to the beardless 
youth ; of all degrees of cultivation — from the man 
of science to the uneducated boy. It is not neces- 
sary, nor is it possible, to repeat the mournful yet 
illustrious roll of dead heroes whom we have met 
to honor. Nor shall I attempt to name all of 
those who most merit praise — simply a few who 
will exemplify the classes to which they belong. 

Among the last slain, but among the first in 
honor and reputation, was that hero of twenty bat- 
tles — John Sedgwick — gentle and kind as a woman, 
brave as a brave man can be, honest, sincere, and 
able — he was a model that all may strive to imi- 
tate, but whom few can equal. In the terrible 
battles which just preceded his death, he had oc- 
casion to display the highest qualities of a com- 
mander and a soldier ; yet after escaping the stroke 
of death when men fell around him by thousands, 
he at last met his fate at a moment of compara- 
tive quiet, by the ball of a single rifleman. He 
died as a soldier would choose to die — with truth 
in his heart, and a sweet, tranquil smile upon his 
face. Alas ! our great nation possesses few sons 
like true John Sedgwick. 

Like him fell, too, at the very head of their 
corps, the white-haired Mansfield, after a long 
career of usefulness, illustrated by his skill and 
cool courage at Fort Brown, Monterey, and Buena 



BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 17 

Vista — John F. Reynolds and Reno, both in the 
full vigor of manhood and intellect — men who hud 
proved their ability and chivalry on many a field 
in Mexico, and in this civil war, gallant gentle- 
men of whom their country had much to hope 
had it pleased God to spare their lives. Lyon fell 
in the prime of life, leading his little army against 
superior numbers, his brief career affording a bril- 
liant example of patriotism and ability. The im- 
petuous Kearney, and such brave generals as Rich- 
ardson, Williams, Terrill, Stevens, Weed, Strom;, 
Saunders, and Hayes, lost their lives while in the 
midst of a career of usefulness. Young Bayard, 
so like the most renowned of his name, that 
" knight above fear and above reproach/' was cut 
off too early for his country, and that excellent 
staff-officer Colonel Garesuhe fell while gallantly 
doing his duty. 

No regiments can spare such gallant, devoted, 
and able commanders as Rossell, Davis, Gove, Sim- 
mons, Bailey, Putnam, and Kingsbury — all of whom 
fell in the thickest of the combat — some of them 
veterans, and others young in service, all good men 
and well-beloved. 

Our batteries have partially paid their terrible 
debt to fate in the loss of such commanders 
Greble, the first to fall in this war. Benson, Haz- 
zard, Smead, JJe Hart, Eazlitt, and those gallant 
2 



18 BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 

boys, Kirby, Woodruff, Dimmice, and Gushing: 
while the engineers lament the promising and 
gallant Wagner and Cross. 

Beneath remote battlefields rest the corpses of 
the heroic McRea, Reed, Bascom, Stone, Sweet, 
and many other company officers. 

Besides these were hosts of veteran ser- 
geants, corporals, and privates, who had fought 
under Scott in Mexico, or contended in many com- 
bats with the savages of the far West and Florida, 
and, mingled with them, young soldiers who, cour- 
ageous, steady, and true, met death unflinchingly, 
without the hope of personal glory. These men, in 
their more humble sphere, served their country 
with as much faith and honor as the most illus- 
trious generals, and all oi^ them with perfect sin- 
gleness of heart. Although their names may not 
live in history, their actions, loyalty, and courage, 
will. Their memories will long be preserved in 
their regiments, for there were many of them who 
merited as proud a distinction as that accorded to 
the "first grenadier of France." or to that other "Rus- 
sian' 1 soldier who gave his life for his comrades. 

Hut there is another class of men who have gone 
from us since this war commenced, whose fate it 
was not to die in battle, but who are none the 
1» ss entitled to be mentioned here. There was Sum- 
ner, a brave, honest, chivalrous veteran, of more 



BATTLE M0N1 MINT at wi si POINT. L9 

than half a century's service, who had confronted 
death unflinchingly on Boores of battlefields, had 
shown his gray head Berene and cheerful where 
death mosl revelled, who more than once told me 
thai he believed and hoped thai his long career 
would end amid the din <>f batth — he died a1 
home from the effects of the hardships of his cam- 
paigns. 

That mosl excellenl soldier, the elegant C. P. 
Smith, whom many of us remember to have Been 
so often on this rery plain, with his superb bear- 
ing, escaped the bullet to fall a victim to the dis- 
ease which has deprived the army of BO many of 
its best soldiers. 

John Buford, cool and intrepid : Mitchell, emi- 
nent in science ; Plummer, Palmer, and many 
other officers and men, lost their lives by sickness 
contracted in the field. 

But I cannot close this long lisl of glorious mar- 
tyrs without paying a sacred debl of official duty 
and personal friendship. There was one dead sol- 
dier who possessed peculiar claims upen my love 
and gratitude. He was an ardent patriot, an un- 
selfish man. a true soldier, the beau-ideal of a staff 
officer — he was my aide-de-camp, Colonel Col- 
burn. 

There is a lesson to be drawn from the death 
and services of these glorious men which we 



20 BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 

should read for the present and future benefit of 
the nation. War in these modern days is a sci- 
ence, and it should now be clear to the most 
prejudiced that for the organization and command 
of armies, and the high combinations of strategy, 
perfect familiarity with the theoretical science of 
war is requisite. To count upon success when the 
plans or executions of campaigns are intrusted to 
men who have no knowledge of war, is as idle 
as to expect the legal wisdom of a Story or a 
Kent from a skilful physician. 

But what is the honorable and holy cause for 
which these men have laid down their lives, and 
for which the nation still demands the sacrifice 
of the precious blood of so many of her children ? 

Soon after the close of the Revolutionary war, 
it was found that the confederacy, which had 
grown up during that memorable contest, was fast 
falling to pieces from its own weight. The cen- 
tral power was too weak ; it could only recom- 
mend to the different states such measures as 
seemed best ; and it possessed no real power to 
legislate, because it lacked the executive force to 
compel obedience to its laws. The national credit 
and self-respect had disappeared, and it was feared 
by the friends of human liberty throughout the 
world that ours was but another, added to the 
long list of fruitless attempts at self-government. 



1 



BATTLE MONUMENT AI WEST Fom ^ ffl 

of the wisest and T g % ^ aff °' ma «y 
to seek I led!! ;, Patd ° liC ° f the Iand - 

~s were Iong , and often °' nt ^ ' ™«r 

the most sanguine doubted the possTbi.'J / "' 
eessful tennination to their ,T * ° 8 "°" 

amidst the conflict „f ^ L>l,t froffl 

me conflict of sectional interests „f , . 

Prejudice, ami „(■ ""-erests, of party 

P J o.ces, and of personal selfishness, the Lrit 

- - — tLSstts **jr- 

the best possible under ffc. • " bein ^ 

accepted Is ^ ^ . trnT*— ' * "" 
which the nation mint T ITT ^ 

We to destruction from interna! causes, so W a s 

the people preserved the recollection of th 1 

- and calamities ,bich led to its adopt", "• 

V i ei tus beneficent Constitution the process 

of the nation was unexamp, e(1 in hist P *« 



22 BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 

rights and liberties of its citizens were secure at 
home and abroad ; vast territories were rescued 
from the control of the savage and the wild beast: 
and added to the domain of civilization and the 
Union. The arts, the sciences, and commerce, grew 
apace ; our flag floated upon every sea, and we 
took our place among the great nations of the 
earth. 

But under the smooth surface of prosperity upon 
which we glided swiftly, with all sails set before 
the summer breeze, dangerous reefs were hidden 
which now and then caused ripples upon the sur- 
face, and made anxious the more cautious pilots. 
Elated by success, the ship swept on, the crew not 
heeding the warnings they received, forgetful of 
the dangers they escaped in the beginning of the 
voyage, and blind to the hideous maelstrom which 
gaped to receive and destroy them. The same ele- 
ments of discordant sectional prejudices, interests, 
and institutions, which had rendered' the forma- 
tion of the Constitution so difficult, threatened 
more than once to destroy it. But for a long time 
the nation was so fortunate as to possess a series 
of political leaders who, to the highest abilities, 
united the same spirit of conciliation which ani- 
mated the fathers of the Republic, and thus for 
many years the threatened evils were averted. 
Time and long-continued good fortune obliterated 



BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 23 

the recollections of the calamities and wretched- 
ness of the years preceding the adoption of the 
Constitution. Men forgot that conciliation, com- 
mon interest, and mutual charity, had been the 
foundation and must be the support of our gov- 
ernment — as is indeed the case with all govern- 
ments and all the relations of life. At length 
men appeared with whom sectional and personal 
prejudices and interests outweighed all considera- 
tions for the general good. Extremists of one sec- 
tion furnished the occasion, eagerly seized as a pre- 
text by equally extreme men in the other, for 
abandoning the pacific remedies and protection 
afforded by the Constitution, and seeking redress 
for possible future evils in war and the destruction 
of the Union. 

Stripped of all sophistry and side issues, the 
direct cause of the war, as it presented itself to 
the honest and patriotic citizens of the North, was 
simply this : Certain states, or rather, a portion of 
the inhabitants of certain states, feared, or professed 
to fear, that injury would result to their rights 
and property from the elevation of a particular 
party to power. Although the Constitution and 
the actual condition of the government provided 
them with a peaceable and sure protection against 
the apprehended evil, they preferred to seek 
security in the destruction of the government, 



24 BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 

which could protect them, and in the use of force 
against the national troops holding a national 
fortress. 

To efface the insult offered our flag; to save our- 
selves from the fate of the divided republics of 
Italy and South America : to preserve our govern- 
ment from destruction, to enforce its just power 
and laws, to maintain our very existence as a 
nation — these were the causes that impelled us to 
draw the sword. 

Rebellion against a government like ours, which 
contains within itself the means of self- adjustment, 
and a pacific remedy for evils, should never be 
confounded with a revolution against despotic 
power, which refuses redress of wrongs. Such a 
rebellion cannot be justified upon ethical grounds, 
and the only alternatives for our choice are its 
suppression or the destruction of our nationality. 
At such a time as this, and in such a struggle, 
political partisanship should be merged in a true 
and brave patriotism, which thinks only of the 
good of the whole country. 

It was in this cause, and with these motives, 
that so many of our comrades gave their lives, and 
to this we are all personally pledged in all honor 
and fidelity. Shall such devotion as that of our 
dead comrades be of no avail ? Shall it be said 
in after-ages that we lacked the vigor to complete 



BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 25 

the work thus begun ? that, after all these noble 
lives freely given, we hesitated, and failed to 
keep straight on until our land was saved? For- 
bid it, Heaven, and give us firmer, truer hearts 
than that ! 

Oh, spirits of the valiant dead, souls of our 
slain heroes, lend us your own indomitable will, 
and, if it be permitted you to commune with those 
still chained by the trammels of mortality, hover 
around ufc in the mids't of danger and tribulation, 
cheer the firm, strengthen the weak, that none 
may doubt the salvation of the republic and the 
triumph of our grand old flag ! 

In the midst of the storms which toss our ship 
of state, there is one great beacon light, to which 
we can ever turn with confidence and hope. 
It cannot be that this great nation has played 
its part in history ; it cannot be that our sun, 
which arose with such bright promises for the 
future, has already set for ever. It must be the 
intention of the overruling Deity that this land, 
so long the asylum of the oppressed, the refuge 
of civil and religious liberty, shall again stand 
forth in bright relief, united, purified, and chas- 
tened by our trials, as an example and encour- 
agement for those who desire the progress of the 
human race. It is not given to our weak intel- 
lects to understand the steps of Providence as 



26 BATTLE MONUMENT AT WEST POINT. 

they occur ; we comprehend them only as we 
look back upon them in the far-distant past. 

So is it now. 

We cannot unravel the seemingly tangled skein 
of the purposes of the Creator — they are too high 
and far reaching for our limited minds. But all 
history and His own revealed Word teach us that 
His ways, although inscrutable, are ever righteous. 
Let us, then, honestly and manfully play our 
part, seek to understand and perform our whole 
duty, and trust unwaveringly in the beneficence 
of the God who led our ancestors across the sea, 
and sustained them afterward, amid dangers more 
appalling even than those encountered by His 
own chosen people in their great exodus. He did 
not bring us here in vain, nor has he supported 
us thus far for naught. If we do our duty and 
trust in Him, He will not desert us in our need. 

Firm in our faith that God will save our 
country, we now dedicate this site to the memory 
of brave men, to loyalty, patriotism, and honor. 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT THE FORT WILLIAM HENRY HOTEL, LAKE GEORGE, TO 
A SPONTANEOUS GATHERING OF THE PEOPLE, FROM FORT EDWARD, 
GLENN'S FALLS, SANDY HILL, WARRENSBURGH, AND FROM FORTY 
MILES DISTANT IN THE MOUNTAINS, ON THE EVENING OF JUNE 

25, 1864. 



ADDRESS. 



I thank yon, my friends, for this unlooked-for 
welcome and pleasing evidence of your regard. 
It is a most happy termination to the delightful 
week I have passed in the midst of this beautiful 
region, among such warm and friendly hearts. 

When men come, as you have done, from many 
miles— from the mountains and the valleys — it 
means something more than an empty compli- 
ment or idle curiosity. At all events, I so regard 
it, and understand this sudden gathering of men 
who are, in truth, the very strength of the nation, 
as intended to show your love and gratitude to 
the gallant men who so long fought under my 
command, and as an evidence to any who may 
dare to doubt, whether abroad, at home, or in the 
Southern States, that the people of this portion of 
the country intend to support to the last the unity 
of our great nation, and the sacredness of its con- 
stitution and laws, against whoever may attack 
them. 

I do not natter myself that this kind demon- 



30 ADDRESS AT LAKE GEORGE. 

stration is a mark of personal regard to me, but 
that it means far more than that — it means that 
you add to the cogent arguments afforded by the 
deeds of your sons and brothers in the field, the 
sanction and weight of your opinion in favor of 
the justice and vital importance of the real cause 
for which we are fighting — a cause which should 
never be perverted or lost sight of. 

It has been my good fortune to have near to me 
in very trying times, many of your near relations ; 
in truth, there must be among you now, men 
who were with me through the memorable seven 
days of battles that commenced just two years ago 
to-day. It is only just that I should thank you 
now for the valor and patriotism of your sons and 
brothers who were with me in the army of the 
Potomac from Yorktown to Antietam. Yet how 
could they be other than brave and patriotic ? 
For they first saw the light amid scenes classical 
in our earliest history, and they sprang from' an- 
cestors who won and held these mountains in hun- 
dreds of combats against the Indians, the French, 
and the English. 

After a gallant defence of these now ruined 
ramparts of William Henry, the blood of many of 
your grandsiies and grandmothers moistened the 
very ground on which you now stand, in a butch- 
ery permitted by the cruel apathy of Montcalm, 



ADDRESS AT LAKE GEORGE. 31 

who two years afterwards suffered for his crime 
in the great battle under the walls of Quebec, 
where. others of your ancestors bore a most hon- 
orable part. 

Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Saratoga, are all 
names made sacred to you by the bravery of your 
fathers, who there made illustrious the name of 
the American troops. 

In this later and more dreadful war, you and 
yours have proved worthy of the reputation of 
your predecessors, and whatever sacrifices may yet 
be necessary, I am confident that you will never 
willingly consent to be citizens of a divided and 
degraded nation. But that you will so support 
the action of your fellow countrymen in the field 
that we shall be victorious, and again have peace 
and a reunited country ; when the hearts of the 
North and South shall again beat in unison, as 
they did in the good old days of the Revolution, 
when our Union and Constitution shall be as firm 
as the mountains which encircle this lovely lake ; 
and the future of the republic shall be as serene 
and pure as the waters of Horican when no 
breeze ripples its surface. 



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